Stagnancy… just the thought of it is enough to make most of us unsettled. The definition of stagnancy when applied to people is “not growing or changing”. I would say that the season of life we have been in looks a lot like a season of stagnancy. We are sitting still, and no matter how hard we try to force change, we aren't moving.
I had spent the last year working with Bubbly getting her ready to be rode. I made sure she had a basic understanding of pressure and release with her halter on, and then she went to the tie post to learn to stand still. She spent about 80% of her time when I had her caught at the tie post. The other horses would get exercised, and she would get to stand tied. At first when I would tie her up, she would immediately start pawing and digging herself quite the hole… She wasn’t happy to be there, and she was more than willing to let us know. She gradually got better, and we started adding in new things while she was tied: picking up feet, getting brushed, standing saddled, and so on.
Eventually, she learned to settle in, and some days she would even nap at the tie post. But, every time I would untie one of the other horses to take them out to exercise, she would watch and start pawing again. She was so frustrated that she wasn’t getting to go do what the other horses were doing. She would look at me most days and I swear she was thinking, “Put me in, I'm ready!”. But, on the days she did get to leave the tie post and go to the round pen or work through exercises, she was way more content when she got back to the tie post.
I think a lot of times in life we are just like Bubbly. We are somewhere standing still, which goes against our nature, and wondering why God hasn’t put us in the game yet. It is easier to stand tied when we’ve done a couple things that feel like we are working towards our goal or our purpose. It’s the times that we feel like we are standing tied and not moving that we really start to let our discomfort show. We get restless and start wondering why we’ve been left standing stagnant for so long, wondering if our purpose is going to fly by us while we physically can’t chase after it…
I think about Bubbly being confident and knowing what she wants to do, but here am I telling her there are steps we have to take before she can step into her full potential. She may have felt like she wasn’t doing anything, but in reality, the lessons she learned while “just standing still” have set her up for becoming a good, well-rounded horse. The thing is, I wasn’t asking her to be stagnant - I was asking her to be patient.
I realized that in my own life God has been asking me to “be still, and know He is God”. His plans are bigger, His timing is perfect, and His ways are higher. I’ve been standing at my tie post throwing a fit about seeing other people moving forward and other people stepping into their purpose, all while missing the growth that was happening in myself while I was standing still. The outward appearance might have seemed like I was stagnant, but in reality, I was growing. Some of the biggest lessons I learned about myself and healing were found when I physically couldn’t change my circumstances.
I think about all my hopes and goals for Bubbly, and I know that I would be doing her a disservice if I rushed her through the basics just so we could get to the big “exciting” stuff. When the time came for Bubbly to do more things, she was confident, prepared, and had learned a lot standing still.
I was also learning a lot standing still. God has plans for me just like I have plans for Bubbly, and He knows when I will be ready for them. I’m beginning to realize what felt like stagnancy was actually growth. Not to say some days I don’t still throw a little fit about where I’m at versus where I want to be, but I’m learning that my own striving, my own need to find my worth and to prove myself, were never going to get me where I wanted to go. The only thing that was really going to help was trusting God when He told me to be still. All those things I was trying to find by “moving” I was actually finding while standing at the tie post.
Isaiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Psalms 46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God!"
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